Jonathan Oxer
[Blog]
Blog > Loving my HP 2133
>> Loving my HP 2133
Wed, Nov 26th 5:31pm 2008: Tech Toys
Our relationship got off to a rocky start but now my HP 2133 Mininote and I are getting along *much* better.
On paper it's a great compromise between portability and features:
* Via C7 CPU @ 1.6Ghz: not so good (slow)
* 1280x768 resolution: awesome on 9" screen
* Wifi: check
* Bluetooth: check
* Gig-E: check
* Camera: check
* SD card reader: check
* Nearly full-size keyboard: awesome!
* Battery life: terrible
* Dodgy graphics chipset: bring on the heartache
The problem is the slightly-non-mainstream stuff that HP used, like the VIA video chipset. With the VESA drivers it works, but at 1280x720 - which means every few lines the pixels are doubled vertically, making text ugly and hard to read. There were some things I could get working properly (including video) under Ubuntu Hardy, and some that worked properly under Intrepid, but not everything at once on any one release. The big thing that kept me on Hardy was the video drivers.
Until this afternoon, when I discovered that VIA have just released drivers built specifically for the Intrepid kernel. Woot! A dist-upgrade and some jiggery-pokery later, and jbooklet is running Intrepid with full support for all the hardware features.
Nice.
Our relationship got off to a rocky start but now my HP 2133 Mininote and I are getting along *much* better.
On paper it's a great compromise between portability and features:
* Via C7 CPU @ 1.6Ghz: not so good (slow)
* 1280x768 resolution: awesome on 9" screen
* Wifi: check
* Bluetooth: check
* Gig-E: check
* Camera: check
* SD card reader: check
* Nearly full-size keyboard: awesome!
* Battery life: terrible
* Dodgy graphics chipset: bring on the heartache
The problem is the slightly-non-mainstream stuff that HP used, like the VIA video chipset. With the VESA drivers it works, but at 1280x720 - which means every few lines the pixels are doubled vertically, making text ugly and hard to read. There were some things I could get working properly (including video) under Ubuntu Hardy, and some that worked properly under Intrepid, but not everything at once on any one release. The big thing that kept me on Hardy was the video drivers.
Until this afternoon, when I discovered that VIA have just released drivers built specifically for the Intrepid kernel. Woot! A dist-upgrade and some jiggery-pokery later, and jbooklet is running Intrepid with full support for all the hardware features.
Nice.[ Back to top ]
